Latest / The Scene Projects / Corey Parchman on NFL Lessons, Business Ventures, and Community Impact

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Corey Parchman on NFL Lessons, Business Ventures, and Community Impact · The Scene Projects

• 0:22
  Welcome in to Real Biz.
• 0:24
  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is professional athlete turned business
• 0:29
  development professional, Corey Parchman.
• 0:31
  Corey, welcome to the show, brother.
• 0:33
  Bubba, thanks for having me.
• 0:34
  I really appreciate it.
• 0:35
  Looking forward to this conversation.
• 0:37
  Yeah.
• 0:37
  Well, I'm really excited about it.
• 0:39
  People who know me and the multitude of shows that we do know that I have a passion for
• 0:44
  sports, but that I also have a passion for getting to know business owners and and the
• 0:48
  challenges that we face out there.
• 0:50
  And I think that we overlap a a ton in that area.
• 0:53
  Before we get into all of that stuff, really just wanna open up the floor to you for a few
• 0:57
  minutes.
• 0:58
  Have you kinda tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 1:02
  Oh, cool.
• 1:03
  Cool.
• 1:03
  From Indianapolis, Indiana.
• 1:04
  Born and raised there Went to a smaller college called Boston University.
• 1:08
  Major in education.
• 1:10
  Got my degree education.
• 1:12
  But, the NFL called me, and, the NFL pay a little bit more than teaching it.
• 1:19
  So I decided to go the NFL route.
• 1:21
  Spent a few years in NFL.
• 1:23
  I joke all the time, but the NFL definitely means, not for long.
• 1:27
  It's kinda my my joke I took all the time because once I got there, I realized that, you
• 1:31
  know, this could end at any moment.
• 1:34
  So I committed the ultimate, professional athlete sin, and I started thinking about plan
• 1:38
  b while I was still in plan a.
• 1:39
  So plan b, while I was playing football, I was the size of my own businesses.
• 1:43
  So I used the connections that I had while I played, made a little bit of a bit of money,
• 1:47
  not for not not not not life changing money.
• 1:50
  A little bit money to start my businesses.
• 1:52
  So I started real estate.
• 1:54
  I've done it for years, probably about twenty seven years now.
• 1:57
  In the last five, I've transitioned into business acquisitions.
• 2:00
  So what I do mostly now is buy smaller businesses, retiring people who are looking to
• 2:06
  get out of the business.
• 2:07
  They don't have succession plan.
• 2:08
  Their kids aren't looking to take over the business, but they're cash flowing businesses.
• 2:11
  So that's kind of what I do now.
• 2:13
  I purchase businesses, and now I help others do the same thing.
• 2:17
  We mainly use what's called the SBA seven a loan program.
• 2:20
  They're willing to finance just about 90% of the deal.
• 2:23
  It has to be a cash flow in deal, of course, in making money, but it's kinda what I do now.
• 2:27
  So like I said, I joke all the time, but, you know, the NFL was great, but I knew I wasn't
• 2:32
  gonna be there long.
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  So I wanna make sure I transition into the next phase, which is bitters.
• 2:36
  I'm loving it right now.
• 2:38
  I think that's a great lesson for any athletes that are out there, and it's not to say don't
• 2:44
  chase that dream.
• 2:45
  Right?
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  The NFL gave you a little bit of that nest egg.
• 2:47
  Like you said, not life changing money, that you made there, but it gave you a little bit of
• 2:52
  a leg up into the world, to go out there and to get yourself into business, to start into real
• 2:58
  estate, and to do those things.
• 2:59
  So, we always encourage, you know, every athlete, I think, that if you want it, to go
• 3:05
  chase that dream and to chase it as far as it will take you.
• 3:08
  But in the back of your mind, you should always know that there's always gonna be a life after
• 3:11
  sport.
• 3:12
  And it doesn't matter how good you are or or how talented you are in the game and how big
• 3:17
  that contract is.
• 3:18
  Eventually, that is going to end.
• 3:20
  And whether you come out of the league making hundreds of millions of dollars or, you know,
• 3:25
  maybe a $100,000 or less, that's still a lot more money to go and play a game that you love
• 3:31
  than most people will see over the course of several years possibly of a salary from a job.
• 3:37
  So chase the dream, but there's nothing wrong with planning for your future at any point in
• 3:42
  your life.
• 3:44
  Yeah.
• 3:44
  Definitely.
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  I think that one thing athletes have to realize that you can walk and two go at the same time.
• 3:49
  I think oftentimes we get convinced that you have to stay focused just on one thing, and if
• 3:53
  you're not focused on that one thing, you're not dedicated.
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  Not necessarily true.
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  I think you'd be just as dedicated to football and your your craft as you can be in other
• 4:00
  aspects of your life.
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  So I would tell athletes all the time, like, you can you can walk with two gums.
• 4:04
  So don't think that because you're not spending a 100% of your time doing this one thing,
• 4:10
  you're exposed to other things that you're not focused.
• 4:12
  In the off seasons, there is date after practice.
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  There's a lot of time in between when you have to work your craft and not to work on other
• 4:19
  things.
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  So don't be afraid to expand your horizons by doing something else other than just a sports
• 4:24
  you're playing.
• 4:26
  Do you feel like your life has come a little bit full circle having a degree in education
• 4:31
  and now kind of educating business owners.
• 4:34
  And and I know it's a small part of what you're doing and you're, you know, purchasing your own
• 4:38
  business and running those, but you're also educating and developing people and working
• 4:42
  with people again.
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  Do you say that you you have a passion for educating and just working with others to make
• 4:48
  them better as well?
• 4:50
  Yeah.
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  Definitely.
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  I think the first thing I did once I saw playing football was open my own preschool in
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  my own neighborhood old neighborhood called Minnie Men Pre K.
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  It was an all boys preschool.
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  Just wanna be able to have that ability to talk and teach and learn those skills in college.
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  So once I retire, I can use those skills.
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  So I use it in the preschool.
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  So just use those same skills in the business world, how to put a curriculum together, how to
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  format a classroom, how to get the message across.
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  So, yeah, just taking those skills I learned from school and just applying it to how I teach
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  people how to operate businesses or how to purchase a business.
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  I guarantee there is a fractional percentage of former NFL players that have opened up a
• 5:30
  preschool, especially one that they went in themselves and were teaching at.
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  I think that's vulnerable, Corey, and it speaks to the man that you are, how much you care
• 5:39
  about your community.
• 5:41
  I I know that you're back around in the Indianapolis area now and and have a lot of
• 5:46
  love for your community.
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  You know?
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  Especially working in real estate, you could have gone and lived anywhere.
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  You could have done any.
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  And I know that in your real estate career, and then towards the end of it, that you're working
• 5:57
  a lot on developing low income housing, and developing that sector of housing.
• 6:03
  Can you talk a little about that?
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  I know you don't do it anymore, but I think it's a really it just speaks to the man that
• 6:07
  you are.
• 6:08
  Yeah.
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  So a few things there.
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  I knew, when I wanna do business, my best opportunity would be in Indianapolis.
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  I knew the landscape.
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  I knew the people there.
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  I had connections there, whether they were in business or personal world.
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  So that's my first thought was, I wanna do business.
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  Let's do it in my hometown where I know people at.
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  So that made that transition a little bit smoother because I had a pretty good name from
• 6:29
  playing sports here.
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  So I used that as leverage to meet people in Indianapolis.
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  I think when it comes to real estate, you kinda evolve.
• 6:36
  You know, I initially started buying and renting, and then from renting to buying and
• 6:41
  rehabbing and selling and started building.
• 6:45
  Then you find your niche, survive the o eight crisis.
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  My financial adviser told me, only thing good about this crisis is with you, Ed, you're
• 6:52
  young.
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  So as you all know, there was a big real estate crisis in 2008 where the market just crashed.
• 6:57
  I was in the middle of that, but I was you know, best enough not to over leverage myself
• 7:03
  with my my property.
• 7:04
  So I was able to survive that.
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  At the same time, you see a niche and a need, and there's a need for inner city housing.
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  And I wanted to make sure when I did build, once again, I started in my old neighborhood
• 7:13
  where I knew the landscape and knew the people.
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  And also being educational, I realized that a lot of families are transient because of the
• 7:20
  housing crisis or just because the rent's so high.
• 7:23
  So it's figuring out a niche and find a space where, you know, I can build was amazing to do
• 7:27
  it in the inner city and build low income housing.
• 7:29
  So I think there's lot of win wins out there.
• 7:31
  I think you can make money, and you can also help people out.
• 7:33
  And that's, like, the win win for me is to do those things.
• 7:36
  So that's kinda where I was in the the housing market, for the last couple of years.
• 7:42
  A couple lessons there.
• 7:44
  And you touched on one at the end, and I think I'll start there first, is that in this world
• 7:50
  of the hustle and the grind and kinda being out for number one, that it's it's okay to maybe
• 7:58
  help others along the way.
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  And whether that is your business helping them, whether it is, you know, being a philanthropist
• 8:05
  or whatever it is, I think the most successful people that we talk to, and I'm sure you know a
• 8:11
  lot more of them in your life than I do, still growing in this, in this life, but that it is
• 8:19
  it is those people who have found that you don't always need to be don't have to be rich
• 8:25
  to help somebody along.
• 8:27
  Right?
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  Like, you don't have to have all the money before you can start helping other people.
• 8:30
  And I really love how your your business model and finding that niche was in, okay.
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  I can use my connections and the skills that I have to go fill a need with people that I care
• 8:42
  about.
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  Right?
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  The people in my community, and I can feel good about that inside, and I can put a few zeros in
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  the bank account at the same time.
• 8:51
  There's I I think there's more to gain from that probably spiritually and from that than
• 8:57
  than any any number in your bank account is ever going to bring.
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  And the other thing that I I really take away from it, and I think that a lot of people who
• 9:06
  want to start a business or doing that, starting where you're known for one and where
• 9:12
  you know the environment, I think are two really key factors that are not always thought
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  about when people are thinking about starting a business.
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  For myself, I was a a little transient, especially early in my twenties.
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  And I remember the feeling of being, in these different towns where, sure, I had a few
• 9:29
  friends, but not everyone knew me like they did in my hometown.
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  And, it it eventually kind of wore wore out on me where I was like, like, I just wanna be
• 9:38
  around where people care about me.
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  Right?
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  I have some of these friends and and where surface level, we're friends and we know each
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  other and we may hang out and have some fun, but I don't have any deep relationships with
• 9:50
  these people.
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  And I think that's something that people in this day are starting a business or considering
• 9:57
  starting that business.
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  You're gonna be much easier, even if it may hurt your pride a little bit early on, to maybe
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  go back and try to start that business where you have the connections, where you have a a
• 10:08
  little bit of where you have some love.
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  Right?
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  I mean, I mean, not just from your family, but from people that you grew up with and people
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  that are going to support you in those early years especially.
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  And then there's nothing stopping you from being able to grow in the future to go to the
• 10:22
  places that maybe you want to be.
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  Of course.
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  I think we'll probably get to this eventually, but that's even what what right now we do with
• 10:28
  business acquisitions.
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  We're buying them from and I buy them from retired baby boomers.
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  They're retiring.
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  And, what I tell anyone at Buy Box, they wanna purchase one, is go back to your hometown and
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  buy a business there.
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  Or tie a business owner will love to sell their business to somebody who's local, somebody
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  who's from there.
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  So you have an advantage.
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  So I took all the time.
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  You wanna get into this business of acquiring businesses, go back home or go to where you're
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  known at.
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  Because once again, if I'm gonna sell my business, I wanna sell it to somebody that I
• 10:56
  know is gonna be there, who's best in the community.
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  So I tell people to use it as your advantage.
• 11:00
  Use your leverage when you wanna purchase businesses.
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  It's just like you said, going back home where you're known at.
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  And like I said, people wanna sell their business not to a big private equity firm
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  that's gonna just blow it up.
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  They wanna sell it to somebody who's vested in the community.
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  They wanna keep that business going because they have something, they're part of the
• 11:17
  community, inside the businesses.
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  Yeah.
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  And even if you've been gone for ten or twenty years, there's a very good chance that if you
• 11:26
  grew up in that town that these people are gonna remember, you know, your mom or dad or
• 11:32
  maybe they remember you playing ball and and have memories of that.
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  And and that's going to make it, one, easier to purchase the business, might even get you a
• 11:39
  little bit better price on that business.
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  You never know when a hometown discount, you know, might might come in handy.
• 11:45
  Yeah.
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  But, ultimately, you're you're going to have the, because I would say most of these people
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  who are even retiring from the business, they're not retiring and leaving the community.
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  They are staying there.
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  And and if you're maintaining this business, especially if it's under the same name and
• 12:00
  you're really just changing ownership and running the same, you know, kind of playbook,
• 12:05
  that having the approval of the former owner and the stamp of approval on that is a massive
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  advantage for anyone buy even if you're buying an old business, you're starting a new
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  business.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, the caveat is, you know, a lot of these business owners have employees that live there.
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  So the best thing for them is to do if they wanna retire, someone who's gonna buy is gonna
• 12:25
  keep his employees employed because a lot of smaller businesses, you know, it's it's a
• 12:29
  family at this point in time, whether or not or not.
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  Some of these people work for them for ten, fifteen years.
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  And the worst that they wanna do is they retire, then that person that's been working
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  for them, their office manager or their secretary or whoever, have to go find another
• 12:41
  job.
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  So it's a win win for them when they can sell a business to somebody who's gonna keep it going
• 12:45
  and gonna keep the people they care about employees.
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  So that's kinda one of the things that teaches, you know, how you go back home and how you have
• 12:52
  those conversations with people that own those businesses and, you know, how you tell them
• 12:57
  that explain your story and how you're gonna keep their legacy going.
• 13:00
  So it's always one of the things that I teach.
• 13:03
  Yeah.
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  Because the last thing I think a business owner wants is to be the guy who sold his business to
• 13:09
  someone who came in, gutted it, fired everyone, and that's gonna leave a bad taste in
• 13:13
  everybody's mouth.
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  And I don't think that anyone who spent a lifetime building up their business and their
• 13:19
  reputation to in the twilight of their life to have that entire reputation tarnished because
• 13:27
  of the way that they ended up to, you know, exit their business.
• 13:31
  Yes.
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  And no.
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  Truth be told, most don't have an exit strategy.
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  Most that I've talked to, their their kids don't wanna take it over.
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  Their kids are left with college or whatever the case may be.
• 13:42
  So you don't think about it.
• 13:43
  I mean, it's almost like writing on a bit where we're writing a a will.
• 13:47
  You know?
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  You know you have to do it, but who wants to do it?
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  So you kinda delay, delay, delay.
• 13:51
  You're like, oh, shoot.
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  I gotta do it.
• 13:53
  Same thing for these business owners.
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  You know?
• 13:55
  You don't have a you know this as a business owner.
• 13:57
  You know?
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  Or anybody that's competitive, what they do.
• 14:00
  You know anything about the end.
• 14:01
  You think about how you're gonna keep going, going, going, going, going.
• 14:04
  And think about the end, almost feel like you're giving up.
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  So a of business owners don't think about the succession because they don't wanna have it in
• 14:10
  the back of their mind.
• 14:11
  Am I giving up?
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  So when I talked to some of these people, it never even crossed their mind, but now they're
• 14:15
  in their sixties, like, oh, shoot.
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  I had to do something.
• 14:18
  So I was having those conversations and and and explaining to them that this is the next step
• 14:22
  to keep this business going.
• 14:26
  Are there lessons from your time in the league that that you carry with you?
• 14:31
  And and I'm thinking of it now, especially in the context of having those conversations.
• 14:36
  Lot of hard conversations as a player that you're in a room for, in the NFL.
• 14:41
  Do you feel like some of those prepared you for being maybe on the other side of the table now
• 14:46
  and and talking with someone.
• 14:48
  But the those pressure situations, being a training camp, which is obviously going on
• 14:53
  right now kinda time stamping this episode Yeah.
• 14:56
  Or or being out there on the field in front of 60,000 fans, is there something, you know, that
• 15:02
  pressure of performing that has prepared you to kinda have these hard conversations in a
• 15:07
  obviously much more private and smaller setting?
• 15:10
  No.
• 15:10
  But what's interesting is I had to, like, shift my entire mind frame once I left the NFL or
• 15:15
  sports and go to the business world or corporate world.
• 15:18
  So in NFL, you're never told what you're doing right.
• 15:21
  You're always told what you're doing wrong because whatever you're doing right, you're
• 15:24
  supposed to do that.
• 15:24
  That's your job.
• 15:25
  You catch the ball, you're supposed to.
• 15:26
  No one's gonna say, oh my god.
• 15:27
  You caught the ball.
• 15:28
  It's like, you're supposed to do that.
• 15:29
  So you don't hear much about, like, what you're doing right.
• 15:32
  You're always trying to fix something every single day.
• 15:34
  You ran this wrong.
• 15:34
  You're doing you watch film.
• 15:35
  It's the film has told you to critique what you're doing wrong.
• 15:37
  It's never to find out what you did right.
• 15:39
  So transform that mind frame to a business world where I had employees where that's not
• 15:44
  you you have to tell them how they're doing.
• 15:46
  You have to continue to compliment people.
• 15:48
  You you you had to partial words into certain ways.
• 15:51
  So I had to shift my mind frame into learning how to be a business owner and how to have
• 15:55
  those conversations in the way corporate America has them, the way the rest of America
• 15:59
  rest of world has them and not in football.
• 16:01
  And it's not as harsh.
• 16:02
  Once again, I've never been a vocal no.
• 16:04
  They don't curse anyone like that.
• 16:06
  But once again, in football, you're always told what you're doing wrong.
• 16:09
  You're never told what you're doing right.
• 16:10
  And, like, when you catch a ball or you do something good, you're supposed to.
• 16:13
  That's your job.
• 16:13
  So I went to the business world thing that's the same way.
• 16:16
  Like, okay.
• 16:16
  You're supposed to be on time.
• 16:17
  You're supposed to come to work.
• 16:18
  You're supposed to but I had to realize that's not how it works.
• 16:21
  So I just shift everything to understand how the other world works from a business, from a
• 16:28
  corporate standpoint of you complimenting your employees, telling what they're doing right,
• 16:31
  you know, always being encouraged and always have been positive.
• 16:34
  So, yeah, I had to shift a little bit.
• 16:36
  It wasn't a smooth finish for me either.
• 16:38
  I had to figure things out how to how to be a business owner.
• 16:40
  So now that I'm twenty, thirty years in, I kinda teach those same things to former
• 16:45
  athletes about shifting their mind frame from being this go go go go go go to, okay.
• 16:50
  Let's figure this thing out and put put a strategy together.
• 16:54
  Yeah.
• 16:55
  It's less corrective, you know, behaviors, and you're constantly thinking.
• 16:59
  And I didn't really thought about that because I've never played a sport at a high level, like
• 17:03
  you have, Corey, but I I never considered that.
• 17:06
  And it it's it's really speaks to, you know, something deeper in sports, and and I think
• 17:11
  it's a lot better now than it was probably, you know, in the seventies and eighties, probably
• 17:16
  the way coaches treat their players.
• 17:18
  But you you aren't getting the the pats on the back.
• 17:21
  Right?
• 17:21
  Your pat on the back is getting to raise that trophy at the end of the year, especially in a
• 17:26
  league like the NFL, you know, now a trillion dollar, you know, business and billion dollar
• 17:32
  franchises running around that, you're not gonna get the pats on the back.
• 17:37
  But as human beings, we we need that.
• 17:39
  And maybe the the you get it, the adulation from the fans, and that's a little bit of it.
• 17:45
  I know you guys probably don't hear it when you're on the field at all and you tend to
• 17:49
  drown that stuff out, but that inside of the locker room and inside of the, you know, the
• 17:54
  training sessions and the film sessions, there isn't a lot of praise to go around.
• 18:00
  And that can be a very hard mental state to live in, for, you know, young athletes, I I
• 18:06
  would say, who are trying to get there.
• 18:08
  And I don't know that that's something I ever really thought a lot about.
• 18:13
  You I think it's easy to look at star athletes as kind of being at the top of their game and
• 18:18
  having nothing to worry about.
• 18:19
  But behind those closed doors, there is a lot of negativity.
• 18:23
  There is a lot of overcoming that mental side of it.
• 18:27
  It's it's I would say it's necessary because that's how you get the best out of out of those
• 18:32
  people.
• 18:33
  But, yeah, completely different from how you can behave in in the real world.
• 18:38
  Yeah.
• 18:39
  Yeah.
• 18:39
  Yeah.
• 18:39
  And it's it's it's just a culture.
• 18:41
  And I would say, you know, it you know, you have some coaches that are, you know, real
• 18:45
  world negative, but you have certain coaches.
• 18:46
  They're always trying to coach you up.
• 18:48
  And, you know, my dad you know, I remember I was a young kid, and my dad was my coach, and
• 18:51
  another coach was kinda getting on me about what I was doing wrong.
• 18:54
  I mean, he's on me, on me, on me.
• 18:55
  I go to my dad.
• 18:56
  I was like, man, Sky is just, like, on me.
• 18:58
  Like, he's getting getting my nerves pretty much.
• 19:01
  And my dad said, no.
• 19:02
  You need to appreciate that.
• 19:03
  And and you need to respect that.
• 19:05
  I said, because he said, when he stops talking to you, that's when you start worrying because
• 19:10
  he's lost faith in you.
• 19:11
  So as long as he's talking to you, as long as he poured into you, need to grasp everything
• 19:14
  you get.
• 19:15
  So that's kinda how you are.
• 19:16
  I'm the player.
• 19:17
  Like, when people are talking to you, even in business, whatever, you wanna listen to those
• 19:21
  things.
• 19:21
  Like I said before, when they stop talking to you, it's when they're kinda, like, kicked out.
• 19:26
  So I've always been that person that can be coached.
• 19:28
  So I think that it's just a culture of sports, of football, especially that you're constantly
• 19:33
  being told what you're doing wrong, but that's a a form of coaching.
• 19:36
  You know, I think that, once again, it's it's one of those things where you're expected to do
• 19:40
  these things.
• 19:41
  Now transport that into, you know, the regular world or not regular world, but, you know, the
• 19:46
  rest of the world doesn't work like that.
• 19:48
  So you have to figure out how you can motivate each person as you are an employer or people
• 19:54
  you work with.
• 19:55
  So once again, just transition that mind frame from being this go, go, go to, you know, be
• 20:01
  more comp no.
• 20:03
  I would say being more understanding of people and where they come from is the key to owning a
• 20:09
  business and being an employer.
• 20:12
  And then being an employee as well, I think.
• 20:15
  So to understand, that everyone you work with has stuff going on, your your owner and your
• 20:21
  supervisors have stuff going on.
• 20:23
  We're all humans, and I think we can all just be a little bit better to one another.
• 20:27
  And that's a great a great way to be.
• 20:31
  Corey, absolutely love that I got to spend some time with you here today.
• 20:35
  Everyone can check out more about Corey, find out more about his businesses and and
• 20:40
  everything else.
• 20:40
  Coreyparchman.com.
• 20:42
  Corey is c o r e y p a r c h m a n dot com.
• 20:47
  Anything you wanna plug before I let you go today, Corey?
• 20:51
  No.
• 20:51
  No.
• 20:51
  Thanks for the opportunity to be on here.
• 20:53
  You know, I think that you should just look my name up and find out about me.
• 20:56
  But, you know, look.
• 20:56
  We love platforms like this that, you know, the the the host lets people talk instead of
• 21:01
  talking over them.
• 21:02
  Love what you're doing.
• 21:03
  Just keep it up, and I'm I'm definitely a a fan of, what you're doing.
• 21:07
  Well, I truly appreciate that.
• 21:09
  It's been a blessing to me to be able to just have conversations.
• 21:13
  I'm really, quite addicted to, this this form of communicating now.
• 21:18
  I I hope we get the chance to meet in person one day.
• 21:21
  We do a lot of football coverage with the sports network, and, we're always looking to
• 21:27
  get out and, visit Indianapolis anytime we can.
• 21:30
  So Please.
• 21:31
  Cory, next time area, around I'll be looking you up.
• 21:34
  Yeah.
• 21:34
  Definitely.
• 21:34
  Come on.
• 21:35
  I'm looking forward to this football season coming up, so, you know, give me a buzz.
• 21:38
  I'll be around.
• 21:39
  Yeah.
• 21:39
  Well, we'll have to get you on and talk some talk some Colts football with you, on the
• 21:44
  network, man.
• 21:45
  I would love
• 21:45
  that.
• 21:46
  Jacksonville football.
• 21:47
  Oh, yeah.
• 21:48
  Jacksonville.
• 21:48
  That's a so and, Alana, we'll just touch on that briefly just because we don't know.
• 21:53
  So did you grow up an Indianapolis fan?
• 21:56
  And then, obviously, Jacksonville drafted you.
• 21:58
  Correct?
• 21:59
  Oh, I think it was an un drafted free agent, but I grew up in Indianapolis my entire life.
• 22:03
  And I I told myself I never want I was getting invited to Colts game all the time.
• 22:06
  I said, I never wanna go to a NFL game.
• 22:08
  The first game I go to would be one I play in, and literally, it happened.
• 22:12
  I never ever been to a game that I didn't play in, so pretty neat story.
• 22:17
  So deep roots, obviously, with Jacksonville, and especially being an undrafted guy.
• 22:21
  They really took a chance on you and gave you an opportunity to to flourish under there, and
• 22:25
  I understand why your affinity would be for that team.
• 22:31
  Do your hometown people that you're buying businesses, do they get on your case about not
• 22:35
  rooting for the horseshoe?
• 22:38
  When I have a pseudo, I have a jaguar pin it.
• 22:40
  I wear it all my meetings, so I kinda it's like a running joke.
• 22:44
  It's a conversation starter, first of all.
• 22:46
  And then I have a a broke finger that Brett Favre did, so I kinda correlate all those
• 22:51
  things into the conversations because business is about relationships.
• 22:54
  And so you wanna establish that that that relationship with people and have those
• 22:57
  conversations.
• 22:57
  So yeah.
• 22:59
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  Nobody's ever gonna take that story away from you, Corey.
• 23:02
  No.
• 23:03
  Not at
• 23:04
  Not at man.
• 23:06
  Can't wait to get you back on.
• 23:07
  Would love to talk some football with you too.
• 23:10
  Glad we got to share a a little tidbit of your career there.
• 23:14
  I mean, there's probably several guys in the league that got a finger broke by Brett Favre,
• 23:19
  but, hey, you get to be one of them.
• 23:21
  Yeah.
• 23:21
  I I can get it fixed, but I'm not.
• 23:24
  No.
• 23:24
  I don't think I would either.
• 23:25
  That's better than an autograph anyway.
• 23:27
  Yes.
• 23:28
  Yes.
• 23:28
  Yeah.
• 23:30
  Corey, great having you on, man.
• 23:31
  Have a great rest of your day, and look forward to talking with you again real soon.
• 23:35
  Thanks.
• 23:36
  Talk to you later.